
Qass -- ^^ 
Book 



'i 







DISCOURSE ^^^ 

DELIVERKD ON THE DAY OF THE > ^ '•^ 

NATIONAL FAST, 

JUNE 1, 1865. 
AT THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 

CUMBERLAND CENTRE, ME. 

BY I?EV. E. S. JORi:>AN. 

PIBLISIIED BY RKQUKST OK THK (' X G KECi AT I ON. 



POjlTL AND: 

PRINTED RY DAVID TUCKER 
1866. 



DEATH OF ADRAHAM LINCOLN. 

A 
DISCOURSE 

DELIVEKED ON THE DAY OF THE 

NATIONAL FAST, 

JUNE 1, 1865, 
AT THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 

CUMBERLAND CENTRE, ME. 

BY REV. E. S. JORDAN. 

P U H r. I S II K D B V R K yu K S T OF THE (^ N li E G A T 1 N . 



PORTLAND: 

PRINTED BY DAVID TUCKER. 

1866. 



. J « z. 



DISCOURSE. 



The ricuteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. — Ps. cxii. 6. 

A righteous man, one who loves and practices justice and 
mercy, will live in the memory of successive generations. 

The idea of the text is not merely that his name will be 
preserved in history, but that it will be cherished with kindly 
remembrance by those in whose memory a righteous man 
would desire to live. 

The names of bad men go down on the pages of history. 

When Erostratus, the incendiary of the great temple of 
Ephcsus, was put to the torture, lie confessed that his only 
motive for setting fire to that magnificent structure, was that 
his name might go down to posterity. 

And it is probable that history will preserve the name of 
the assassin of our late President on the same page with his 
own. tBut while the one shall be in everlasting remembrance, 
the other shall be spoken with horror and everlasting con- 
tempt. 

Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, February 12, 
1809. It has been noticed that his birth day occurs in the 
same month with that of Washington. For a long time we 
have been accustomed to celebrate the 22d of February as 
the birth day of Geo. Washington, the father of his country. 
Hereafter there will be thousands and millions who will com- 
memorate the 12tli of February as the birth day of Abraham 
Lincoln, the savior of his country. 

Both were born in slave States, yet both were sufficiently 



free fjom prejudice to perceive the injustice and dangerous 
tendency of the system of slavery. 

It was however a part of the Divine plan that Abraham 
Lincoln should not be brought up in a slave State. It may 
be that his father, Thomas Lincoln, had seen enough of the 
institution to convince him of its degrading effects on the 
poor whites of the South, and that, therefore, he determined 
to emigrate to a free State. When his son Abraham was 
seven years old, he removed from Kentucky to Indiana. 
Here father and son toiled together in clearing up the wild 
land of that new territory. Until he was nineteen he was 
strengtening his constitution by vigorous labor amid the 
western forests. He was thus enabled to acquire a practical 
knowledge of the structure of American society. 

If a master of a vessel would command the respect of his 
crew, he must understand their duties as well as his own. 
Let him who would be the master of his ship, and be secure 
from imposition, begin before the mast. 

So be^an young Lincoln at the bottom of society, and came 
up by force of his own character, and by Providential guid- 
ance to be master of this great ship of State. 

At the age of nineteen he made one trip or more in a flat- 
boat down the Mississippi. 

About the time of his majority he accompanied his father 
to Illinois where he helped him build, not a palace in which 
kings are reared, but a log hut in which any American Presi- 
dent may pass his youth. It was here, too, that he earned 
the appellation at which aristocrats have sneered, of " Tlie 
Rail-Splitter." Listen, ye soft-handed princes, and noblemen 
of the old world, and you, their sycophantic imitators of the 
new, the future President of the United States helped his 
father split rails sufficient to fence ten acres of land ! 

At the age of twenty-two, — attend again, ye who despise 
the poor toiling millions, — he hired out for ten dollars a 



month to help his employer build a flat-boat ; and after- 
wards he worked as one of the hands in navigating it to 
New Orleans. His employer, finding him trustworthy, put 
him in charge of a store and a mill. 

When he was twenty-three, he enlisted in what was called 
the " Black Hawk war." He was soon promoted to be Cap- 
tain, — with which he has been heard to say, that he was more 
pleased than with any other success of his life. 

Soon after he was nominated as a candidate for Repre- 
sentative to the Legislature ; and, though he failed of an elec- 
tion, yet the f\ict that his own town gave him 277 votes, while 
only 7 were cast against him, shows how highly he was es- 
teemed by those who knew him best. 

About this time his fellow citizens desired him to accept the 
office of Post Master, and he received the appointment. 

And in all these years of toil he was intellectaally active. 
He was studying nature, men and the laws of men. Neither 
did he forget the laws of God. It has been well said, that 
" of books he had the best in that volume which, beyond all 
others, yields the most nutritious intellectual aliment, and has 
in all ages given, instrumentally, the greatest moral heroes to 
the world. He knew and revered those holy principles of 
right and justice, which had come to him in his forest home 
with the seal and stamp of Divine authority." 

But while the immutable Avords of inspiration were thus 
moulding his character, he did not neglect such other sources 
of knowledge as were within his reach. He would go to a 
law office, as it was about to be closed for the night, and bor- 
row books to be returned the next morning. He also quali- 
fied himself to practice as a Surveyor of land. 

When he was twenty-five years of age his friends made 
another effort — and this time successful — to elect him to the 
legislature, of which he was a member several sessions. 

At twenty-eight he removed to Springfield where he com- 



menced the practice of law, in which he was eminently suc- 
cessful. His industry, fidelity and ability, secured him a large 
patronage. 

Ten years later he was sent to Congress. Five yeai*s ago 
he was nominated for the Presidency of the United States, 
and was elected in the autum of 1860. Four eventful 
years of service commended liim to his countrymen for re- 
election. Six weeks after he had entered upon his new 
term while the dark clouds which had hung about the na- 
tional horizon were breaking away, he was permitted to as- 
cend as into the top of Nebo, and survey the great land which 
God was giving to his people ; but another leader was to con- 
duct them in to possess it. 

He was not known as a national man until 1858, when he 
canvassed the State of Illinois in opposition to Stephen 
A. Douglass, as a candidate for the United States Senate. 
Mr. Douglass succeeded, but he acknowledged the ability 
and honesty of his competitor. Though of politically dif- 
ferent views, they were personal friends. I had an oppor- 
tunity of hearing Mr. Douglass when he was in this State 
five years ago. I remember that while he was on his 
way from the State capital addressing crowds at every station, 
when some had the ill grace to cheer for his opponent, Mr. 
Douglass had the magnanimity to say, in substance, " I thank 
you for that. Mr. Lincoln is my friend. He is known to the 
country through me." It was those speeches in opposition to 
Mr. Douglass which suggested his name as a suitable candi- 
date for the Presidency. 

Many have been the heart-felt tributes which have been paid, 
through the length and breadth of our country, to President 
Lincoln. The fact that grief so universal and so sincere was 
awakened by his death has become a matter of history. This 
common and spontaneous tribute of tears will aid future 
generations in making up their verdict concerning his cha- 
racter. The greatest living orators have brought their meeds 



•7 

of eloquence ; and poets are laying their wreaths on his bier. 
The air, with here and there an exception, which only renders 
the praise more apparent, has been vocal with his virtues. 

Just as great musical composers sometimes drop in notes of 
discord, which only render the harmony more noticeable ; so 
these notes of enmity, which arise here and there against our 
martyred President, will but render the harmony more ob- 
servable, as it echoes through the ages. 

But he has been taken from us ; and we come to-day, in 
common with our countrymen all over our land, to bow our- 
selves beneath the chastising blow, and humbly to ask why it 
may have fallen. We cannot doubt that love for the martyr 
as well as regard for the best interests of the nation that 
mourns him, suflfered the assassin to execute his purpose. All 
that God suffers he will overrule for the accomplishment of an 
infinitely wise and holy plan. 

Some of us remeiBber the story, that once in the Crimean 
campaign, a cannon ball, discharged at a regiment of veterans, 
came teaming its way through their columns, leaving their 
broken ranks wide asunder, and the hearts of the survivors 
heavy with sorrow, as they saw the manly forms of their com- 
rades weltering in their blood. But the work of that cannon 
ball was not done. It had not spent its momentum in its mis- 
sion of death. It hastens now on its work of mercy. It 
buries itself in the green hill-side ; and up from the spot 
vthere it strikes, there issues a pure stream of cool water ; and 
thousands of soldiers thereafter slake their thirst at its grateful 
fountain. 

So flew the messenger of death that took the life of our be- 
loved Chief Its work was not accomplished when the assas- 
sin's deed was done. It must speed on its way, and open a 
remedial fountain for the nation. And while we sit in sack- 
cloth for our loss, and humbly say, Thy will be done ; in 
no presuming spirit might we ask what that will may be. 



And one design of this mysterious providence undoubtedly 
is, to rebuke our proclivity to rely on an arm of flesh. 

Perhaps there was danger of our listening to a voice, saying, 
Peace, nov?", weary nation ! Your staunch Ship of State 
has outrode the storms. You have the most skillful command- 
ers, and may well trust the future to them. Lie on your oars 
and rest. You have given to humanity your bravest and 
dearest. You have lifted up the heart and the voice in strong 
crying and tears to Him who rules over all. But the night is 
now passing. The morning star is sending his beams over the 
land. You may now cease from praying and pleading with 
God for your dear friends, and your beloved land. Did not 
the Divine eye behold such a feeling springing up ? And may 
not this have been one reason for taking from us the liuman 
staff, frail as a reed, upon which we were already beginning 
to lean ? 

Another design in suffering this appalling crime may be to 
impress on the nation the character of our murdered Presi- 
dent. 

There is something so subduing in the manner and sudden- 
ness of his death, and the great heart of the nation has been 
so melted by it, that the virtues of the victim must needs bo 
stamped on the national character. 

There can be no doubt that the influence of his character 
on our own, and coming generations, will be far greater than 
if he had lived to a good old age, and died a natural death. 

One prominent characteristic thus stamped on the hearts of 
his countrymen, was an unfaltering confidence in God, as the 
Being who, in answer to prayer, directs all human affairs. 

In that parting address to his neighbors at the railway sta- 
tion, just before the cars bore him to his vast duties and 
responsibilities, he sounded the key-note to all his future acts. 
His remarks will bear repetition. 

" My friends ! No one, not in my position, can appreciate 



the sadness I foci at this parthig. To this people I owe all 
that I am. Hero I have lived more than a quarter of a 
century. Here my children were born, and here one of them 
lies buried. I know not how soon I shall see you again. A 
duty dovolves upon me which is perhaps greater than that 
which has devolved upon any other man since the days of 
Washington. He never would have succeeded except for the 
aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. 
I foci that I cannot succeed without the same Divine aid which 
sustained him. In the same Almighty Being I place my reli- 
ance for support ; and I liope you, my friends, will pray that 
I may receive the Divine assistance, without which, I cannot 
succeed, and with which success is certain. Again I bid you 
all an affectionate farewell."' 

How little did he or they think, that, after four years of 
anxious thought and unparalleled labor, he would be borne 
back to that station in the silence of death. 

The same great truth seemed continually impressed on his 
mind during his entire journey to the capital. At Buffalo we 
hear him saying, in reference to the task imposed on him: — 
" I am sure I bring a heart true to the work. For the ability 
to perform it, I trust in that Supreme Being who has never 
forsaken this favored land. Without that assistance I shall 
surely fail. With it I cannot fail." 

After he had assumed the duties of his office, what but a 
firm reliance on the Ruler of nations could have enabled him 
to preserve such equanimity, in the face of a task too great 
for a mortal in his own strength to bear up under ? What but 
his confidence in the Ruler of the storms could have imparted 
courage to walk upon the raging sea of our public affairs with 
such composure ? Those of us who have remained in our quiet 
homes during these four years of battle, will never be able to 
appreciate the magnitude of the preparations which had been 
made to secure the success of the rebellion. And therefore 



10 

we shall never comprehend the perplexities which surrounded 
the Patriot of the West when he was placed at the helm of 
our Ship of State, which seemed to be going to wreck by 
reason of the great mutiny. 

If we could see their numerous forts, as strong as military 
skill could build them, with the thousands of heavy pieces of 
artillery which frowned from their battlements ; if we could 
see the hundreds of torpedoes, which had been sunk in har- 
bors, and rivers, so as apparently to ensure the destruction of 
any vessels which might approach them ; if we could behold 
their vast armies, and their brave and determined leaders, we 
should have a clearer idea of the power which was arrayed 
against the government, and should confess as he did, that the 
work devolving on Abraham Lincoln, was greater than that 
devolving on any other man since the days of Washington. 

Besides, as is always the case in an internal dissension, there 
was a very large minority, who, openly or secretly, sympathized 
with the rebels. It was quite impossible to determine whom to 
trust. Turning his eyes southward, the .President saw a 
united band all prepared for battle.. 

Looking northward he saw a thrifty, industrious population 
unaccustomed to the arts of war, and not all ready to unite 
with him in maintaining the integrity of the Union. 

Looking southward, he beheld by far the larger portion of 
the heavy armament of the nation, waiting the new order of 
things, ready to belch destruction against their prospective an- 
tagonists. 

Looking northward, he saw our forts and arsenals compara- 
tively destitute of arms, our navy yards vacant, while our 
ships of war were riding at anchor in foreign ports, or scat. 
tered on distant seas. And the traitorous Secretary of War, 
under the out-going administration, had taken special care that 
there should be but few loyal men in any Southern fort. The 
forts in Charleston harbor, for example, were manned by pnly 



11 

fourscore men. Our small standing army, consisting of about 
tea thousand men, had been so disposed of that they could be of 
no avail to the new administration. Many of the commanders 
in both tlic army and navy were in sympathy with the seces- 
sionists. 

Mr. Cameron, tlie first Secretary of War under President 
Lincoln, has put on record the condition of affairs when he 
entered on the duties of his office. He says : — " I found the 
Department destiiute of all means of defence, without guns, 
and wiih little prospect of purchasing the materiel of war. I 
found the nation without an army ; and I found scarcely a man 
throughout the whole War Department in whom I could put 
my trust." 

About this time a rebel paper encouraged the conspiracy by 
the statement, that, by one order, Floyd had removed from the 
North, 115,000 muskets and rifles, which had been distributed 
in various southern arsenals. 

Another paper stated that by Floyd's management, and by 
purchase, there were nearly a million stand of arms and of 
revolvers, in the possession of southern leaders. 

The preparations, in all respects, were immense, and the 
northern people had no idea of their magnitude, nor of the 
vastness of the struggle necessary to meet and overcome them. 
It is not to be wondered at, that the rebel legislature re- 
ceived the President's order, calling out seventy-five thousand 
men, with shouts of ridicule. 

And yet in these days which tried the souls of the loyal 
portion of the American people, and those most who knew most 
of affairs, Abraham Lincoln never despaired of the Republic. 
He could not, because he confided in the justice of God and 
in the righteousness of the cause he had espoused. Far down 
the future, he saw the beam inclining to the side of mercy and 
justice at last ; and so was calm. 



12 

" His steps were slow, yet forward still 
He pressed, where others paused or failed ; 
His calm star clomb with constant will, 
While restless meteors flashed, and paled." 

Another trait which I hope will be indelibly impressed on 
the character of the American people, was his sympathy for 
the poor and friendless. 

There is no evil which glides into old communities more 
stealthily than an aristocratic separation into classes. Society 
has been so effectually severed in some of the ancient nations 
of the East, that a person of a higher caste would be struck 
dumb with horror to be found eating with one below him, or 
even to eat from a dish which he had touched. This is an ex- 
treme of aristocratic distinctions. A great effort has been 
made within the past few years, to introduce an aristocracy 
even into New England. It has long existed at the South. 
There has been an entire separation, for several generations, 
between the laborer and the gentleman. We have but little 
idea of the impregnable barrier that existed betvreen them. 
A statement of a Southern minister who lectured in this place 
some months ago, will illustrate this. He asked for a brush 
and blacking for his boots. He said the first time he blacked 
his own boots after coming north, he could not suppress a 
feeling of shame, and cast furtive glances around him to see 
whether there was any witness of his degradation ! " Now," 
said he, " I thank God that I am in a State where I can black 
my own boots without disgrace." 

It was perfectly natural, but very unfortunate for southern 
society, to cherish the idea that labor was degrading, fit only 
for the African slave, and his sordid northern sympathizer. 
It has a very hardening influence to regard it as perfectly 
honorable to live on the unremuncrated toil of others, and to 
hold it a shame to be seen engaged in any kind of manual 
labor for one's-self. Society must be corrupt where labor is 
considered a disgrace. 



13 

la such society, the time wliicli in youth should he spent 
in healthful toil, will bo given up to pleasure and passion. 
Woe be to the Republic, if the day shall ever arrive when her 
sons shall scorn labor. 

The idea that labor is a sufficient barrier to the highest 
social and political positions, is not indigenous to our shores. 
It is an exotic ; and belongs on this continent no more than 
royalty with its privileged classes, its nobility, and its courts. 
It ought almost to be regarded as treason against our demo- 
cratic institutions to attempt to introduce an aristocracy into 
New England. The Puritan fathers would almost spring 
from their quiet resting places on our rock-bound coast, to cry 
out against such a violation of the principles they laid down 
their lives to establish. The ocean which guards their graves 
Avould almost receive a tongue and say ; " It was not for this 
degenerate sons of the Puritans, that I bore them to this 
shore."' The rivers would murmur, and the hills, and valleys 
and forests would echo their maledictions against even the ap- 
pearance of such an innovation. 

When our ancestors came to New England they broke away 
from the old feudal principles. They established an equality 
of social position. And this has given to the world some of 
the greatest men of modern times. It raised Franklin from 
his printer's desk to the highest rank among Philosophers. It 
took Putnam from his plow, and Greene from his anvil. It 
took Andrew Jackson from his Irish parents and placed him 
in the front rank of our civil and military leaders. It brought 
Webster from his father's farm in the Granite State, to per- 
haps, the most commanding position attained by any American 
orate r. In every department it has given to the world its 
greatest benefactors. 

In such an era as this, while the principles of this Republic 
are being moulded for future generations, it is a cause of 



14 

gratitude, that both the civil leaders of the nation should bo of 
the most plebeian origin. There is a providence and a prophecy 
in the fact, that these two sons of toil should be elevated to 
the highest office within the gift of the people ; and when the 
one was taken that his mantle fell on another of equally- 
humble parentage. 

It was in a little old house, with unpainted walls, and but 
one room twelve feet square, and an open garret, that Abraham 
Lincoln's successor was born. It was in that humble home, 
in the city of Raleigh, that at the age of fourteen he began to 
learn the alphabet. It was in that he lived when he was ap- 
prenticed to a tailor. Near by is the burial place of his father, 
a small dark stone with the simple initials of his name, marks 
the resting-place of the father of our President. 

May the elevation of two such men to the highest office in 
the nation, at this important period of our history, long post- 
pone the day when American youth will prefer as a mode), 
polished villainy to uncultivated honesty ! 

Moses was linked by birth with the oppressed people of 
Egypt ; and he ever preferred to suffer affliction with them, 
rather than to be called the son of a king's daughter. So 
were the sons of the poor chosen to lead this nation from 
bondage, and as the one was true even to the melancholy night 
when his work was ended, so have we reason to believe the 
other will be. 

But whatever may be the course of his successor, Abraham 
Lincoln certainly symyathized with the poor and friendless. 

Mr. Carpenter, the Artist, who was so long at the White 
House engaged on his great painting of President Lincoln and 
his Cabinet, says : — " I have known him to sit for hours, pa- 
tiently listening to tales of domestic troubles from poor people, 
carefully sifting the facts, and manifesting as much anxiety 
to do exactly right, as in matters of the gravest interest. 



15 

Poorly-clad people were more likely to get a hearing, than those 
who came in silks and velvets. No one was ever tnrned away 
from his door because of poverty. It was a constant marvel 
to me, that, with all his other cares and duties, he could give 
so much time, and be so patient with this multitude." 

His sympathies were early enlisted for the African race* 
They were poor, but they found a friend in him. He was 
urged, not more by military necessity than by his strong sym- 
pathy for the oppressed, to proclaim them free. His love of 
mercy as well as of justice impelled him to lift up his voice 
and sound the key-note of emancipation in the ears of the na- 
tion, just arousing to a sense of its dangers and its duties. 

It was a mercy, for which the ages to come will be more 
thankful than we, that a man occupied the Executive Chair, 
who, in all the tender sentiments, was in advance of the Na- 
tional feeling, otherwise slavery and the nation might have 
lived or died together. It was nearly three years ago that he 
resolved on this step ; and two and a half since he wrote : — 
*'I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within 
said designated States, and parts of States, are, and hencefor- 
ward shall be free. And that the executive government of 
the United States, including the military and naval authorities 
thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said per- 
sons." 

"And upon this, sinccz'ely believed to be an act of justice, 
warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I in- 
voke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious 
favor of Almighty God." 

1 must not detain you to speak of other traits of the departed 
patriot, which it is to be hoped, will be stamped on the present 
and future generations of our country ; but will pass to a final 
lesson, whicli, in the midst of our mourning, God is teaching 
the world, viz : that neither regal authority, nor aristocratic 
influence is necessary to the perpetuity of a nation's life. 



16 

When the war burst so su(Jdeiily on the worlJ, it was ex- 
pected by the nations of Europe, that we should but add 
another to the wrecks of the few democratic forms of govern- 
ment which have preceded us. The sentiment of very many 
intelKgent men abroad was represented by that remark of a 
correspondent of tlie London Times : — "The great Repubhcan 
bubble has burst." Now the tone of the London Times has 
changed. In a copy, which a friend has put into my hands 
during the present week, I read : — "Those who have staked 
their political faith on the expected disruption of democracy 
have prepared for themselves a signal defeat. Democracy has 
reaped this advantage, that it has had the opportunity of dis- 
proving the charge of weakness^ which is often laid at its door. 
It has been vulgarly supposed that democracy is necessarily 
incompatible with strength and vigor of executive action. 
That delusion the American struggle has dispelled. It has 
been thought tha.t democracies were necessarily fickle to their 
rulers, unstable in their policy, and wavering in their determi- 
nation. That, too, the democracy of America has disproved. 
It has been said that democracies are necessarily violent and 
cruel in their disposition, and that, from impatience of disci- 
pline and obedience, they are unapt for Military success. No 
man can say that now. It has been said that democracies 
would not support the expenses of war and the burdens of 
taxation. That is proved not to be the case. No autocrat 
that the world has ever seen, has received a more firm and 
unbounded support, and commanded more unlimited resources 
than those which the American people have placed at the dis- 
posal of Mr. Lincoln." 

To show the feeling which this mournful event has drawn 
out in France also, I will quote a few lines Irom one of her 
leading journals : — 

"Abraham Lincoln receives his reward. The two worlds 
are mourning his death. "What is specially striking and note- 



17 

worthy in the effect produced hero by this unexpected news, 
is the universal conviction that the death of one man, however 
great he may be, can neitlier disturb the affairs, nor shake the 
institutions of the American Republic. We see Andrew John- 
son twelve hours after the death of Lincoln bow before the 
National representation, speak not of his rights, but of his 
duties, and declare tliat he will faithfully fulfil them. The 
United States have the freest, the gentlest, and at the same 
time, the strongest government on earth." 

Was it not then one design of Providence in permitting this 
appalling crime, to show to the nations of the old world, that 
the strength of a democratic government lies not in the influ- 
ence of one man, but in the education and liberty of the 
the people. 

And it is a striking providence that this event is calling out 
the sympathy and good-will of the masses in the old world as 
nothing else could. In the great cities, in villages and neigh- 
borhoods, men have gathered together, and talked over this sad 
event, with as much apparent interest and grief, as in the land 
which claimed him as its own. The animosity which, a few 
weeks since, seemed to exist between this and rival nations 
over the sea, has to a great degree, been buried in the grave of 
the Martyr of Freedom. 

His work is now done. 

Whiteficld predicted that God had suffered him to speak 
and labor so much in health, that he would have nothing for 
him to do in his last hours, and that he should die silent. And 
his prediction was verified. In like manner, motionless and 
silent passed the spirit of Abraham Lincoln. His labors were 
ended in health and vigor. In the language of a poem he 
loved to repeat : 

" Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the ware, 
He passeth from life to hii rest in the grave. 



18 

" 'Ti9 the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, — 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, 
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud." 

History tells us that when William, Prince of Orange, who 
at the age of fifty-two, became a martyr to his country's cause, 
received a mortal wound by the pistol shot of a young assassin, 
he fell and died with the prayer on his lips, " my God, have 
compassion on me, and my poor coilntry." 

But so suddenly passed the soul ot our martyred Chief, that 
he had no time to repeat the prayer which he had often 
uttered, " God. have mercy on me, and my poor country." 

To-day his countrymen, with a melancholy gratitude, and 
with his name embalmed in millions of hearts, pay their last 
national tribute to his memory. 

With the hope that his character for industry, and temper- 
ance, for simplicity in taste and integrity of purpose, for un- 
affected sympathy with the poor and friendless, for unwavering 
devotion to the cause of his country and the best interests of 
humanity, aiid for unfaltering trust in God, may be impressed 
on the nation, we commend him to history. 



